African Christian Communities Research Articles

Discrimination and differentiation in the development of worship in the Presbyterian Church of South(ern) Africa

Worship as the work of the people of God does not arise in a vacuum. It is contextual and cultural. In the areas of the world, long designated as the mission field, many developments were transported to countries in the global south and imposed on local peoples. This was true of the arrival of Presbyterians who came to settle in southern Africa. Presbyterians imported two differing traditions of worship, the evangelical and the liturgical, and introduced them to the indigenous peoples they encountered. They were adopted without adaptation and have largely followed their European ancestors and contemporaries. Africans have largely followed their missionary mentors but have found ways of subverting these traditions by forming a new tradition by blending aspects of each and adding their own African brand of Spirit inspired and led. worship while their mentors pay only lip service to their African colleagues.Contribution: This article highlights the historical continuities in the worship of a mainline Church of European Origin (CEO) with their ecclesiastical and ecumenical source(s). This is in discontinuity with the worship traditions of African Christian communities, which are less formal and tend to incline towards the charismatic and Pentecostal traditions with their freedom of expression of faith rather than the more cerebral forms of expression.

Christian Education in Colonial and Post-Independent Zimbabwe: A Paradigm Shift

Since the arrival of Christianity in Africa during the pre-colonial era, one of the main characteristics of its spread has been Christian Education (CE). The achievements made thus far by missionaries and African Christian communities were based on the Church-based Christian Education programs that were put into place by churches created by missionaries. Education, let alone Christian Education, has a key role to play in the transformation of every society. The problem is that the type of Christianity and Christian Education introduced sought to uproot Africans from their identity, culture, and language. Christian Education has a crucial role in changing the perspective of citizens to one that is Euro-centric and in promoting effective discipleship and strong doctrinal allegiance among members of mainline churches. Even though Christianity has undergone meaningful change over time, its many manifestations still survive in diverse 21st-century societies. Christianity, just like African Traditional Religion, has permeated every sphere and life of the Zimbabweans. The prospects of Christian Education to foster a positive society’s transformation in Zimbabwe are great and accepted. Two types of Christianity were introduced to Africa: Afro-centric Christianity and Euro-centric Christianity.

Intimations of Revelation 19–21 in the Early North African Christian Communities

Abstract The purpose of this article is to provide a survey of the interpretation of Revelation 19–21 in the early North African Christian communities (II–III century). These chapters refer to one of the most controversial passages of John’s Apocalypse (the eschatological war, the millennial kingdom, and the descent of the New Jerusalem). After a brief methodological reflection, the article will investigate how these chapters were interpreted not only in the early Latin authors but also how this material was employed in martyrdom accounts as well. The study, in fact, will begin with the first Latin document of Christian literature, the Acta Martyrum Scilitanorum, followed by the corpus of Tertullian, the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis, and the writings of Cyprian.

Power to Become Children of God: Remembering in-the-Life with a Johannine (Dis)Position1

abstract Honoring the contributions of Shaykh Dr. Ibrahim Abdurramah Farajajé and Joseph Beam, this article advances an in-the-life approach to selected scriptures from the Gospel of John as a means to affirm that Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), and same gender loving persons are among those who can chose to access, in the words of John 1:12, the power to become children of God. In its critique of the hypocritical erotophobia of African American Christian communities toward its queer members, this article proposes that Farajajé and Beam’s writings can undergird the agency to live into God-with-us-ness. Characters from John’s gospel are put into context with contemporary Black LGBTQ and same-gender-loving experience to gesture toward possibilities for resilient self-acceptance, dignity, and flourishing.

Women, Rights Talk, and African Pentecostalism

In this essay, I seek to bring a rights perspective to women’s religious leadership and agency in Africa, notably in the case of the newer forms of Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity that now predominate in many parts of the continent. Rather than adopting a legal approach, I focus on the concept of “rights talk” which provides a more productive and inclusive way to approach ideas about women’s leadership in locally grounded (and often transnationally connected) African Christian communities. The protagonists are the women church founders and leaders who have publicly addressed the emancipation of women in the varying contexts of gender inequality. I contend that the way modern Pentecostal-charismatic women leaders argue for equality, justice, and dignity in their religious communities can also be traced back to their forbears in the African-initiated or independent churches that date from the seventeenth century onwards. There are interesting parallels, as well as some differences, in the ways that they frame, explicitly or implicitly, their understandings of equality and freedom from oppression, and balance compliance and resistance to perduring patriarchal limitations on their religious agency.

Healing and reconciliation as a pastoral ministry in post-conflict South African Christian communities

Although Jeremiah�s lamentation is directed towards the wound of God�s people in Zion, Africa remains the site of struggle for political, socio-economic and religious freedoms. Is there no balm in Africa to heal the wound of God�s people? This article examined the principles of healing and reconciliation as understood in the South African cosmology and how or whether they could be applied by the pastoral ministry to enhance the recovery and restoration of African Christian communities in post-conflict situations. To get the relevant data, the authors engaged literature written on these concepts of healing and reconciliation and how they are applied in a broader context. The authors also used their experiences in the field of healing to illustrate some points.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Although the article is focussed on the role of the pastoral ministry within the South African cosmology, this study has interdisciplinary implications in the disciplines of peacebuilding, mental health and psychosocial support. The author argues that when these social and cultural aspects of healing and reconciliation are taken into consideration, they could enhance post-conflict reconstruction and social transformation of post-conflict African communities.

Science and Charity: Rival Catholic Visions for Humanitarian Practice at the End of Empire

This paper explores the conflict between local expressions of Christian charity and new theories of scientific humanitarianism in the final years of French rule in Africa. Compassionate phenomena inspired by Catholic social organizing had transformed everyday life throughout French Cameroon's cities and villages in the interwar and postwar years, and yet, in 1950, poverty, crime, poor public health, and social tensions remained prevalent. Seeking a more deeply transformative approach to social rehabilitation, ecclesiastical leaders in the Catholic Church in Europe and French foreign missionary societies in Africa partnered with international medical and scientific organizations to invigorate charity with technical expertise. Revised ethics and practices departed sharply from preexisting models of collective social action, as European leaders lacked confidence in the intentions as well as the outcomes of African-led religious organizing. European humanitarian approaches conceived after World War II demanded a new focus on particular African subjects, namely the child and the family, which alienated indigenous Christian principals, who, along with large and diverse African Christian communities, had previously determined the direction of Catholic social action on the continent.

WE HAVE YOKED A LION: THE 7th COMMANDMENT AND HUMAN DIGNITY IN AFRICA

It is argued that the prohibition against adultery and related extra marital sexual acts in pre and early Biblical times were not aimed at such acts per se, but at stabilizing relations and protecting the their ethical function was enhanced by making these part of cultic purity regulations. In the post-Old Testament period and especially in the early Christian tradition, sexual restraint to the boundaries of marriage became key in denoting the uniqueness of faith commitment. Since the medieval period through the Reformation and especially in its pietistic off-springs, adultery came to be viewed as one of the main ‘sins’ of humankind. In reaction to this, since the sexual revolution of the mid sixties of the previous century, extra marital sex became a commodity to proportions of idolatry. In traditional African communities there was a very open and relaxed view and practice of extra marital sex. The introduction of Western pietistic missionary teaching on sex on the one hand and the disruption of traditional culture through westernization and lately by mass media, disrupted sexual stability to disastrous proportions in many African communities. In African Christian communities, sexual purity is usually valued highly but seldom practiced. The unrestrained practice of sex and the consequential damage to human dignity of women and children in particular, cannot be redressed by simply preaching the seventh commandment loader. It will have to go hand in hand with redressing of social relations.

Teaching Ethics in the Face of Africa’s Moral Crisis: Reflections from a Guest

Though the Christian faith has in recent years increasingly shown itself to be a truly African religion, a variety of African authors such as Kä Mana, George Kinoti, Hannah Kinoti, August Shutte and Efoé Julien Penoukou have noted that sub-Saharan Africa is facing a moral crisis. This article explores this crisis in as far as it is caused by difficulties in the reception of the (Western) Christian ethic by African Christian communities. It points out that this crisis is visible in (a) double morality, (b) immorality and (c) legalism. It shows that it is both caused by rapid social change in contemporary Africa and by the way the Christian ethic was introduced with a lack of attention for (a) the relationship between worldview and ethics, (b) the social impact of changing cultural practices and (c) the importance of virtue ethics. In this way it also points to the shape Christian moral education for present-day Africa should take.

African Christians in Europe: Introduction

Th e academic study of African Christian communities in Europe has proliferated since the groundbreaking work of people like Roswith Gerloff (1992), Gerrie ter Haar (1998, 1999) and Afe Adogame (1998). African churches, more than groups from Latin America or Asia, seem to draw the academic attention, especially within the disciplines of religious studies and cultural anthropology. Th e burgeoning of these churches as well as their liturgical exuberance might be the rationale for this focus on African churches. Initial research was mainly ethnographical, focusing on thick descriptions of these new phenomena. In recent years the paradigms of transnationalism, of reverse mission, of recognition, and of geography, locality and place have served as analytical foci in the study of these groups. Th is issue consists of six contributions that focus on theoretical issues in the study of African Christian communities in Europe. Ramon Sarro and Joana Santos in their article on the Kimbanguist Church in Portugal show how the notion of ‘return’ characterizes the life of the Kimbanguists in Lisbon and demonstrate that there is a link between this notion of return and the growing respect for the contributions of the wife of Simon Kimbangu in the Kimbanguist Church. Nienke Pruiksma discusses the limited usefulness of territorial notions of context in situations of migration. Taking her starting point in a case-study of the Celestial Church of Christ in Amsterdam she argues that in circumstances of migration,

Classifying African Christianities: Past, Present, and Future: Part One

AbstractThis two-part article examines the practice of classifying African Christianities, looking at past and current approaches in order to make suggestions for the future. Noting advances in such classification from the disciplines of African church history and the anthropology of Christianity, it proposes a generational approach to African Christian communities. After reviewing past approaches and identifying their shortcomings, part one shows how Pentecostalism has disrupted such classifications further, prompting the late church historian Ogbu Kalu’s assertion of continuity within African Christianities through a longstanding pattern of revivalism. Kalu helpfully emphasizes African initiatives in Christian creativity and detects similarities over time in Christianity’s appeal to Africans. Yet he also relies on a problematic essentialist approach to Africa and, by foregrounding Pentecostals and African Independent (or Initiated) Churches, continues a trend that overlooks other African Christians. The challenge lies in developing classifications that include all African Christians, using concepts that generate insight-producing comparisons.

Classifying African Christianities, Part Two: The Anthropology of Christianity and Generations of African Christians

AbstractCurrent approaches to classifying African Christianities include generalizing approaches like Ogbu Kalu’s assertion of ongoing revival and particular studies associated with the anthropology of Christianity. Here I argue for a generational approach to African Christian communities, noting what has been achieved and what remains to be done.Two recent ethnographies show the promise in the anthropology of Christianity for fruitful comparative approaches to African Christianity. Dorothy Hodgson’s study of Catholic evangelization of the Maasai and Matthew Engelke’s examination of a Zimbabwean independent church both develop concepts—inculturation and semiotic ideology, respectively—that prioritize African theological work in making Christianity suitable for African believers. Such conceptual approaches can include African Christians overlooked in past classifications and promote insightful comparisons. However, concepts that offer a comparative framework to address sociological belonging to mission-founded churches are still needed for a generational approach to African Christian communities.

Erasing History: The Destruction of the Beersheba and Platberg African Christian Communities in the Eastern Orange Free State, 1858–1983

The white settler Cape Colony and later Republic and Province of the Orange Free State in central South Africa imposed a harsh regime of suppression on the African communities found within their territory. Chieftaincy was largely abolished and independent Bantu, Khoisan, and ‘Coloured’ (mixed race) communities were progressively destroyed and their inhabitants made to work on white farms and in the towns. The only exceptions were the tiny Native Reserves that later became apartheid Bantustans. Such destruction was visited not only upon pre-colonial chieftaincies and villages but equally black Christian mission stations and settlements. This paper documents the systematic destruction of two such communities on the eastern side of the Caledon River Valley on the border with the independent African Kingdom of Lesotho: Beersheba mission station near Smithfield in 1858 and the Platberg location attached to Ladybrand over the period 1968–1983. The tragic drama of these communities’ disappearance illustrates poignantly not simply the pillaging of independent black communities, whether pre-colonial or Christian, but the effective attempt as well to erase them from history. How and why this was done forms the subject of the author's reflective commentary on race and place in rural white-ruled South Africa.

Moral transgression, disease and holistic health in the Livingstonia Mission in late nineteenth and early twenttieth-century Malawi

This article examines ideas of morality and health, and connections between moral transgression and disease in both Scottish missionary and Central African thought in the context of the Livingstonia Mission of the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland in Malawi during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By concentrating on debates, conflicts and co-operation between missionaries and Africans over the key issues of beer drinking and sexual morality, this article explores the emergence of a new "moral hygiene" among African Christian communities in Northern Malawi.

Institutional and Popular Interpretations of the Bible in Africa: Towards an Integration

In this paper, I examine how the Bible is interpreted in Africa's theological institutions (including university Religious Studies Departments and Faculties of Theology), as well as Africa's churches, homes and open spaces, with the intention of finding out how the two can be best integrated for the sake of African Christian communities. I argue that we can not venture a mutual relationship between the two ways of interpreting the Bible in Africa until we first establish the principles behind the explication of biblical texts in popular interpretations of the Bible in Africa. However, since we posses insufficient data on popular interpretations of the Bible in Africa to allow us to establish such principles, I propose that African biblical scholarship should undertake the task of collecting such data as an integral part of its scholarship.

Churches as Healing Communities: Impulses from the South for an Integral Understanding of Healing

AbstractFor several reasons in missionary ecumenical circles healing could become the new paradigm for mission. One of the main reasons is that in churches in the Southern hemisphere healing is the central focus of the local Christian community. Church life is characterized by the conviction that not the mere change of political structures will lead to a better world. Liberation from evil, forgiveness, medical care, mutual acceptance and common socio-political engagement, all are inspired by the integral message of the gospel. The author gives several examples of African Christian communities in the Netherlands that may be called healing communities and are an inspiration for new forms of living the Christian faith, badly needed for the white middle class congregations that are weakened by secularism and Enlightenment.

Moving among Those Moved by the Spirit

The religious maps of Europe and North America have been profoundly altered by the growing presence of African religious communities in a way that further challenges the secularization thesis. The paper situates the new African religious diaspora within ongoing processes of globalization and transnationalism. We seek to interrogate how religious repertoires in Africa and the diaspora establish continuities with the past as well as engage in self-positioning as part of the processes of African modernity. Drawing from our research experience amongst African Christian communities in Europe and the USA, the paper highlights the methodological challenges of conducting fieldwork amongst African Christians in the diaspora. These include the enduring insider/outsider problem, the politics of advocacy in the case of asylum seekers, and the charged issue of accurate representation of the ?Other?. The paper challenges the tendency to ?explain away? religion and underlines the urgency for a sustained reflection on the interface between sociological theory and fieldwork. We demonstrate, how and to what extent African Christians mobilize the resource of religion to facilitate their mostly tenuous existence in the diaspora, and contend that their experiences provide valuable perspectives into how religious and extra-religious networks and experiences might act as substitutes for socioeconomic security and a bastion for religio-cultural identity.

Cyprian and his collegae: Patronage and the episcopal synod of 252

The Roman patron–client relationship has been useful for understanding early Christian bishops and their relationships with their own communities. In this paper the question is asked whether that relationship could shed light on the relationships among bishops themselves. Taking the third–century Saint Cyprian of Carthage as the example, his interactions with other North African bishops at the synod of 252 are examined. The author accepts that Cyprian's Epp. 59 and 64 refer to that synod. Whatever else was discussed, we know that the bishops in synod resolved questions about the status of a former presbyter and the timing of infant baptism. In Ep. 59 Cyprian made reference to the college of bishops (sacerdotum collegium). The heart of the paper examines Cyprian's understanding of other bishops as collegae and whether he treated them as clients. The evidence that is available suggests that he accepted bishops who all shared in the same office as being responsible to God alone for their communities, but that his ability to exercise some degree of patron–age over them, through his greater prestige and financial base, was a control mechanism by which he sought to keep unity among the African Christian communities.

Religion, Culture and Resistance: the Significance of African Christian Communities in Europe

Religion, Culture and Resistance: the Significance of African Christian Communities in Europe

PARTNERSHIP OF AFRICAN CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES IN EUROPE

International Review of MissionVolume 89, Issue 354 p. 291-298 PARTNERSHIP OF AFRICAN CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES IN EUROPE MILLENNIAL CONFERENCE: “OPEN SPACE: THE AFRICAN CHRISTIAN DIASPORA IN EUROPE AND THE QUEST FOR HUMAN COMMUNITY” Afe Adogame, Afe AdogameSearch for more papers by this author Afe Adogame, Afe AdogameSearch for more papers by this author First published: 25 March 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6631.2000.tb00204.xCitations: 2Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume89, Issue354July 2000Pages 291-298 RelatedInformation